


Feet, Shoes

by tinyfloatingwhale (thescienceofbeekeeping)



Series: Our Cousins, the Stars [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Backstory, Fanon, Gen, Music, Origin Story, Pining, dance, relearning old spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:53:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3698123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescienceofbeekeeping/pseuds/tinyfloatingwhale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Watch closely, Steven. It was Gems that taught Humankind how to dance.</i><br/>--<br/>Pearl teaches Steven some history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feet, Shoes

Sometimes, Pearl thinks about Before.

She tries not to dwell on recent memories. She goes farther back, instead; before Rose, before the Schism, before disillusion and false promises and the blind curse of optimism.

 _Did you know,_ she says to the bundle on the floor in the middle of the temple, its cooing noises echoing to the apex of the ceiling and rocking her heart like a calming tide, _did you know that you are part of the most illustrious cultural history in the Universe?_

She stares up at the massive figure etched in stone, its arms outstretched, full of compassion.

_That we Gems are only a little younger than what humans call the Big Bang?_

The baby gurgles, then whimpers, and it sounds almost like a tune.

It was true. First, there was Heat. Then, Sound.

Music was the second act of Creation.

-

 _Atoms didn’t exist for another few hundred thousand years, of course,_ she grates out, too loudly, scooping up clothing and toys from the makeshift nursery floor, on a night when a hurricane threatens to rip the house off of the cliff and into the sea and the baby is wailing, wailing, wailing. She is alone, Garnet and Amethyst gone, so she talks through the building headache as if he will understand.

She nudges the rocker of the cradle with her toe, the information she gleaned from Gregory regarding human children flashing through her mind in a static haze.

But the little face is screwed up and purple and the crying has stopped, and he had mentioned nothing about _this_.

Panic constricts her throat like so many fists. Her trembling, icy fingers stutter against his wrist and neck. Two months. To Pearl, it’s been an instant; grief still crushes her ribs and pierces her lungs. It strikes her rigid, brings a keening whistle through her nose as she grips the tiny body to her chest, her spine set to snap as she searches out a pulse with his skin burning against hers.

A ragged, wet gasp and a cough, and the screaming returns. She remembers to inhale, clutching at the mop of curls as if they would turn into mist, even as his heaving chest presses sticky against her neck and his bellowing makes her ears ring. Pearl bounces him on her shoulder, rubbing circles over his back. The tune she hums is strained and her voice cracks as tears run over her chin, but it is music.

She flits an anxious orbit around the cradle into the morning. As if she were praying, she whispers, almost to herself:

_But when the atoms finally showed up, it was sound that brought them together. The stars, they all burn thanks to music. Just like us. Our cousins, the stars, they fuse and burn and give birth to new elements the same way that Gems do._

When sunrise breaks, Steven lies quietly and stares up at her with sparkling, smiling eyes. His mother’s.

_We are simply less elegant._

-

Her feet brush smoothly over the floorboards, and she centers herself within Amethyst’s stomping and Garnet’s gyrations. _Watch closely, Steven,_ she says to the toddler sitting rapt on the floor before them. _It was Gems that taught Humankind how to dance._

It hadn’t been easy, from what she could recall; humans managed to figure out music mostly on their own with a little coaxing, but dance had been beyond their grasp.

_Dance on Earth has since evolved into a social and cultural expression. But when we first taught you, it was the way that the Gems use dance._

She lifts her arms over her head, relishing the stretch of muscle, the heat of the bodies on either side of her. No Earth culture remained that had retained the original purpose of their moving forms: to navigate the stars, and become a part of their history. Even through the gravity of this planet, Pearl could sense their journey through space. Dance was survival, it was heritage; to feel out pockets of life in the universe, to celebrate the creation of new solar systems and constellations, to join in the song that the birth of each new star brings without interrupting.

Steven claps his hands and giggles, tottering upward and rushing to join them with his stubby legs and waddling feet. He clings to Pearl’s knee, following her steps with his own.

_It was survival. It was heritage._

_It was love._

 -

 _A lot of the dances people do today are the same as the ones we taught over the years,_ she says on a particularly cold summer day, when the wind coming off of the ocean is strong and sharp. _Chakacha, yangge, tango, mtiuluri, bon odori, ballet…_

A spark of recognition burns behind Steven’s eyes, and he turns to stare up at her as if she’s the entire world. She smiles, and holds out her hand.

_Come on._

The pressure on her feet as he steps up is foreign, and it throws off her balance, but Steven is grinning and breathless with excitement and where his hands fit into hers, they’re the tiniest bit damp.

_This is called the waltz._

They wheel around the house in a slow rotation: they fumble, and trip, and knock shins and backs of knees against furniture. When they both become too dizzy to continue they slump in a heap in the middle of the floor.

 _Remember, Steven –_ Pearl clasps his hands in hers and searches his face, her gem faintly glowing in the twilight– _there would be no fusion, no dance, no humans, no Gems, without music. It’s the beginning of everything except the Universe itself._

His face screws up, trying to discern the lesson in her words, and she can’t keep eye contact anymore. She settles her gaze on his feet. _It’s like shoes: at first we didn’t realize how important they were, until someone else told us, and they felt strange. Then you get used to them, and you want them more often than not, and you realize that you’re a lot better off with them than without._

She looks up to the portrait above the door, and the prickling behind her eyes makes her squeeze his hands tighter.

 _Do you know how new Gems are made, Steven?_ The boy swallows thickly, shakes his head. From outside, they can hear the crash of the waves on the shore, the tinkling of a wind-chime, traffic, shouts from the boardwalk, a storm building off the coast, life.

_We sing._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here it is! My first of - hopefully - many vignettes on Steven Universe.
> 
> I've taken some serious scientific and historical liberties with this. The Big Bang was an extremely complex and faceted process, and not all of the dances mentioned are ancient... But I figured, dance is dance. Even if the names change, the forms have probably existed for as long as people have.
> 
> My purpose in writing this piece was to really explore the origins of the Gems, which seems so rooted in sound and music and movement, and how that relates to their cosmic beginnings. The logical conclusion (and at this point potentially canon, considering all of the space motifs in the show) was: stars. 
> 
> It makes sense to me, anyways.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
